The CCSF Performing Arts Education Center (PAEC)

by M. Mueller, Music Department Chair
(CCSF faculty member since 1965), July 10, 2013

“Rightsize” City College seems to be the current mantra of some
state and local officials. Oddly enough that has been the goal of
many of us at CCSF for many years. All the building projects, during
the last several years, have been researched, designed, and built in
every case to rightsize, not expand the college. The voters of San
Francisco have enthusiastically passed bond measures to give their
money to the college in order to build a “rightsized” environment for
our students to succeed.

Unlike the California university systems, funds for capital projects
for community colleges always come from outside the general revenue,
either via local or State bond measures. Money for UC or CSU
facilities must be part of their general budgets; funding for
California K-14 facilities must be voted for by the public and cannot
be used for any other purpose.

The 38 million matching funds from the State for CCSF’s Performing
Arts Education Center (PAEC), for example, came after a series of
State Legislative Committees’ recommendation for approval. State bond
monies for community colleges are closely and carefully monitored and
funds are allocated only after extensive criteria are met. Local bond
measures are even more strictly subject to oversight and control.
S.F. taxpayers vote for individual projects and expect the college to
carry out their wishes for the use of their money. Again, the money
cannot be used for any other college need.

Before the various bond measures are presented to the voters, the
college has always done extensive, professional research into what the
public wants. The Wellness Center, Mission Campus, Chinatown Campus,
and the Multi-Use Building (MUB) were all built following the wishes
of San Francisco taxpayers. All replaced either sub-standard, unsafe
temporary facilities, or removed college students from inappropriate
buildings being rented (usually from SF Unified) at very high rates.
It should be noted that the savings by eliminating rents for moving
students into buildings desired and paid for by taxpayers, such as the
Mission and Chinatown Campuses, pays towards the costs of operating
those buildings. True “rightsizing.”

The Performing Arts Education Center (PAEC) was supposed to have
been built along with the above facilities. Indeed, in the various
researches done of San Francisco voters, this is the building they
really want and have wanted for decades. A 1965 article in the S.F.
Examiner asked where is City College’s auditorium? A few years later,
Dr. Clarence Mangham, Vice Chancellor of Facilities in the State
Chancellor’s office also pointed out that CCSF was, in fact, an
“incomplete campus,” which was, in the days of valid application of
criteria, an accreditation “deficiency.” Are we ready to say to the
people of S.F. and the people of California that we don’t intend to
follow their wishes to build a PAEC for students and the community?
The situation is, of course, complicated by the current accreditation
cloud over CCSF, but shouldn’t this last project of the current local
and State bonds for academic building upgrades be respected?
Certainly at least until the June 2014 deadline for the use of the
State approved funds? Any future City College of any size will still
need this facility to complete the campus, so the fate of the building
and CCSF should stay joined for this year.

Here are some issues involving the PAEC (in no particular order)

· Over $20,000,000 has already been spent on the project
involving land preparation, energy use, and designs.

· The building has been “shovel-ready” for months.

· Because then Chancellor Fisher pulled the contract to bid
out the project off the agenda in the middle of last October’s Board
of Trustee meeting, the college was forced by her action to miss the
opportunity to hire an “at risk” construction firm which would have
bid-out and locked-in construction costs at highly affordable
pre-2013 levels.

· The project was set to break ground June 2013. The project
now needs to break ground by June 2014 to retain the $38,000,000 in
State matching funds.

· If the $38,000,000 is not used by CCSF, it goes back to the
State to give to another school (and therefore not to local
construction workers).

· The delay caused by Chancellor Fisher will probably result
in the college missing the Sept. 2013 deadline for building the PAEC
under the current building permits from the Division of the State
Architect (DSA).

· A design update for a new DSA permit is “doable” according
to the PAEC architects, but will need to be done ASAP, because of the
review and approval process involved. Money for this update is
available in the PAC bond money; it would not come from the
general fund.

· The 50 plus million now dedicated through the local bond
criteria for the PAEC cannot be used for other CCSF projects, no
matter how worthy, unless they were voted for already. A new bond
measure must be passed to address various new capital project needs
for CCSF. And how likely will that be when the press will no doubt
trumpet that the college threw away one hundred million dollars of
support for what voters wanted and paid for?!

· It is estimated that when Chancellor Fisher did not allow
the college to lock-in more reasonable construction costs, the project
now going out to bid, due to construction market escalation is
estimated to cost on the order of an additional 5 million. Again the
architects have declared this to be “doable” under a redesign process
called “value-engineering” and again the cost to redesign is within
valid bond expense, not college budgets, and must be done ASAP.

· Current Chancellor Thelma Scott-Skillman has always made her
objection to PAC an issue of the college not having done a
professional assessment of costs to run the building. Fortunately, we
did pay consultant David Dial for such an assessment in 2005. With
very slight updating to today’s dollars, the report should fulfill
now, as it did then, its role as an advisory document.

· The PAEC is designed with 3 performance spaces seating 650,
200, and 150 respectively, and also includes 3 large rooms which could
each hold 150 to 200 people (there are several additional classroom
size spaces). The six large spaces are all “rentable” and would
generate more than enough to cover annual custodian costs. Please click here to see renderings of the performance
spaces.

· The six large rooms in PAEC would almost double the number
of such sized rooms now on campus and allow a far more efficient
scheduling of large lecture classes taught by fewer faculty. This
seems one of the big goals of current “enrollment management”
processes. Other community colleges have the proportionately
appropriate numbers of large rooms at their campuses. CCSF does not.

· The badly conceived but obvious move these days to deny
students their necessary training in the arts should not negate the
building of the PAEC . All rooms can be used for all disciplines.

· The Arts/Entertainment Industry is one of California’s major
employers. In addition, many of the high tech advancements in many
fields frequently come from people who have performing and visual arts
background and training. The PAEC building has been designed for
state-of-the-art (notice how we acknowledge “art” in any statement
about cutting edge technology) education and training.

· The PAEC design has already won major national and state
awards, especially for its green attributes. The building has been
designed to high energy performance requirements and is targeting LEED
Gold Certification (Leadership in Energy & Environmental
Design), a level unique among performing arts buildings. In fact,
part of the 20 million already spent on PAEC involves the hundred plus
geo-thermal wells dug under the reservoir parking area and the
conversion rooms repositioned under the MUB. These rooms were to be
built under PAEC and were designed to serve both buildings, but MUB
got its funding first, so the basement of PAC was shifted to the
addition of a basement for MUB.

· If the PAEC does need a fund-raising effort to meet any
additional capital fund needs, or to endow building costs beyond
revenue generated by rental fees and/or extra FTES State revenue
generated by scheduling the large rooms under enrollment management, a
capital campaign was well underway a few years ago. Two consultants
were hired to lay out the steps needed and also prepared publicity.
It would take very little effort to finish their work (and get some
return on our investment.) The materials are all in boxes and available.

· Many people, especially connected personally and
professionally to the CCSF music and theatre arts faculty, have been
or are being contacted to support the PAEC, in particular, and the
Performing Arts at City College in general. A partial list (as of
September 12, 2013) currently includes: